GWLB: Growing Pains

I think it’s almost time to get a larger office. Right now I work from a small 100 square foot office. It is a suite partitioned into 6 smaller offices. All of us in the offices share a bathroom, kitchen area, access to a conference type room, and common area with a couch. The couch is pretty ancient. I think it may have been a blueish/gray at one time? There may or may not be suspicious stains on it. In any event, I don’t use the couch. Other than the couch, it’s not a bad setup and the cost is very reasonable. Everything is all included so there’s no utilities bills or internet on top of rent. The suite shares a fiber internet connection that is plenty fast enough (please lord bring fiber to my neighborhood at home.. I would love to game on a fiber connection).

The Shared Office Couch

The problem is I’ve ran out of room in my 100 square foot space. If I moved anything else into here, it would get cluttered. That’s not going to happen because I’m a minimalist neat freak by nature. Consequently, product samples, inventory, and office stuff is piling up at home. So I’m getting wrecked by the clutter there. I think I nearly drowned in cardboard a couple weeks ago in our converted garage space. On top of that, I think the wife has had just about enough of it. I am a very frugal person but I am grudgingly coming around to a state of acceptance about the getting a bigger office thing.

One area of growth that hasn’t been painful is the addition of a new High Ground Gaming writer: Austin Clarke. He is now writing for HGG on a consistent basis so you should be seeing more of him around here. He recently reviewed a couple gadgets from brand Genius Gaming. He is a talented writer and I am happy to have him aboard. For quite some time now I’ve been handling the majority of the writing and editing (with some aid from random freelance writers) and the workload was really stacking up. A few more straws and the camels back was going to break. Indeed, I think it may have took me too long to learn that High Ground Gaming can grow much faster with a dedicated team. I finally got there and much of that is thanks to Austin’s work so far.

The line between work and life has definitely blurred. Much of my time I spend thinking about the various projects I’m working on. I’m not sure I would have it any other way but I do realize I oftentimes come off as distracted to others outside of work. My contemplative mind combined with a caffeine addiction and the stress of work is certainly not the formula for success. I’m finding ways to unwind and be more mindful of the present. My wife and I went on hikes with friends and family the last two weekends. I went on vacation last month and although I came back to an alarming number of emails, I was able to stay away from work stuff most the time. I’m not sure what to do about the caffeine addiction. I think part of the problem is I’m not quite sure if it’s a net positive or negative. Coffee is so ingrained in my routine, I’d have to quit cold turkey.

I haven’t fit in much gaming lately. A little Assassin’s Creed: Origins and Farcry 5 but that’s about it. Though I haven’t been playing often, I do occasionally turn on some pro Starcraft 2 matches. I found a great site called sc2casts.com that puts up all the VODs for free. It’s not quite as good as watching live of course, but most the matches are based in South Korea so live wouldn’t be a possibility anyway unless I want to throw a sleep deficit into the above-mentioned formula. I’ve played some SC2 in my day — enough to know what is going on and how difficult skills-wise it is to do what those pros make look so easy. I respect top FPS and MOBA players, but the micro/macro and APM these SC2 guys display boggles my mind. I’m getting more familiar with the GSL players and I’m enjoying following season 2. The casting from Artosis and Tasteless is nothing short of brilliant. If you’re a big RTS fan I’d highly recommend tuning in.

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About Benjamin Barr

Grey wanderer, wordsmith, gamer. I've been gaming since the days of Command & Conquer and Doom. You can follow me on Twitter @hgg_wasd.

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